Only £30 this week-what to buy?

[Maccapaccawentwee]

We had an emergency medical situation with Dd and had to call a doctor out for a home visit. She’s fine now but we’re down nearly €200. We’re in another country and I have the equivalent of £30 for food until Friday, what go buy 🤷🏻‍♀️How to budget food for that amount (we usually spend 80/90)
What are the best foods/meals?

Sorry, Xposted.
Flour - make bread or if no yeast, soda bread. Very filling warmed with butter or jam.
Egg fried rice
Tinned tomatoes and make your own pasta sauce with lentils .

In the UK I'd buy something like this:

Rice
Pasta
Lentils
Beans
Tinned tomatoes
Bananas
Oats
Milk
Bread
Jam
Frozen spinach
Frozen peas
Potatoes
Baked beans
Cheese
Tinned soup
Sausages

Breakfast: toast or porridge with jam
Snack bananas or toast
Lunches: cheese on toast/jam sandwich/soup and bread, beans on toast or leftovers from dinners

Dinners:
Lentil and spinach curry
Bean chilli
Tomato pasta with cheese, maybe lentils
Beans on baked potato
Sausage mash and peas
Potato and pea curry

Depends on where you are and what's cheap there though!

I’d probably buy a chicken, minced beef, value pasta, oats, milk , eggs, frozen peas, carrots, flour, sachet yeast , bananas, sugar for a start

Meal suggestions
Veg and chickpea curry and rice
Pasta with tomato and chilli sauce, grated cheese.
Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese
Fritata with what every veg you have available
Veg and bean chilli with rice or jackets

What foods are cheap where you are?
I would base it around that! It will vary.a lot between countries

Jacket potatoes are filling and cheap. Topped with beans or a can of tuna or some cheese.

Tomato pasta with sauce made from tinned tomatoes and pasta and baked in the oven with cheese on top.

Pasta pesto.

Anything with eggs - frittata or quiche is so cheap. I can make a quiche to serve 6 people and it costs about £3.

What do you have in stock in cupboards / fridge / freezer ?
What country?
What stores near ?

Pitta pizzas are a cheap lunch, 40p for the pittas, squirt of purée, grate of cheese and cooked for 10-15 mins.

Bean chilli, and left overs could be eaten the next day

Flatbreads, made from flour and water with a lentil Dahl is good.

Chicken cooked and all meat taken off. If you poach it (nigella's praised chicken) you can have some of the chicken with mash and then some with pasta for lunch and some in a risotto (not the magic mumsnet chicken but using it to make dishes that don't need a lot of meat). Add chickpeas and you can make a chicken and chickpea curry.

Homemade tomato sauce (onion, garlic, oregano and tinned toms) to add to pasta. If you have it shove a tin of tuna in too.

Egg in toast for breakfast, cut a circle out of the middle and fry the bread then crack the egg in.

@BackforGood I have half a pack of pasta, four eggs etc..it might be different in U.K. but where I am, this amount worries me tbf

Egg in toast for breakfast, cut a circle out of the middle and fry the bread then crack the egg in.

I’ve never heard of this.. Why would you fry bread? That sounds unnecessarily unhealthy and a lot more hassle than just having poached eggs on toast?

I’d buy cheap fruit and veg eg, bananas, apples, carrots, frozen peas, broccoli, the cheapest pack of peppers.
Kidney beans and tinned tomatoes to make veggie chilli along with the carrots and peppers.
Chickpeas and coconut milk to make vegetable curry along with the other veg.
Tinned tomatoes and garlic to make spaghetti arabbiata.
Oats to make porridge for breakfast with sliced banana.
A loaf of bread to have scrambled eggs on toast for your lunch. Or you could have them for breakfast and jacket potatoes or vegetable soup for lunch.
Fruit and carrot sticks are your snacks.
It’s very doable especially if you shop at Aldi/Lidl or similar.

Just buy a cheap loaf , some pasta , Passata ,onions , root veg ,veg stock , potatoes and mince and you can easily make &/5 days worth of meals .I reckon that would come in at half your budget . For future reference you really should keep your cupboards and freezer better stocked as most people , unless they are completely on the breadline would be able to live off food they have already for 4/5 days fairly easily .

I’m guessing you are in Ireland OP? Food is so much more expensive and you won’t find much for €2 for multiples of tins. I think you will need to shop around in Lidl. It will be hard but start off with a weekly menu and see what can be used/carried forward.
I wouldn’t bother with biscuits etc Bake Queen cakes if you have the ingreds but buy ingreds for meals first.
If you ha e to buy nappies, forget the meat and have a vegetarian week and cook stir fry. Don’t vary the food too much. It’s just one week.

Baked potatoes are cheap and filling, and the bill for oven heating won’t come in next week.

I would keep an eye out for your local butcher deals.
Or Lidl or Aldi is your best bet.

Write a menu for the week using stuff you already have, so just buy the meat.

Im in Ireland as well and i know how tough it is when you have limited money.

Any chance of getting a lend till Friday.

@Bluenightowl I’m in Portugal and the food shop seems to be way more than the U.K., I’m always shocked how cheap things are when I come back. Also, wages are much lower here. A tin of beans is around €2 here, soup similar. I saw someone said pita bread 40p! Here it’s around €3. Things like chickpeas are 60 cents, pasta 60 cents, so those are the cheaper options.

I just priced it up in Sainsbury’s to make what I suggested - 1kg carrots, 1kg oats, a loaf of wholemeal bread, 12 eggs, 4 pints milk, 2 tins tomatoes, 2 tins kidney beans, 1 tin chickpeas, a bulb of garlic, a head of broccoli, a head of cauliflower, a jar of peanut butter, 500g bag of peppers, 1kg bananas, 2 bags of apples and a tin of coconut milk is under £15 buying the cheapest version of everything.

You can also think about what is traditional ‘peasant food’ there - I don’t know anything about Portuguese food but what would poor people there traditionally have eaten? Eg in the U.K. porridge and stews or ingredients-wise potatoes, cabbages and root veg. I’m guessing the ingredients in those kinds of dishes will still be quite cheap, so you could base your meal ideas on those.

In Portugal you should be able to get hold of fish quite cheaply. Whole Chicken, potatoes and tomatoes are usually cheap too. Is there a market where you know a trader well enough to throw yourself at their mercy and just say "here's €10, I want as much veg as possible please, bit of a mix as it's to do the week", then they might sort out a good mix for you from knowing all their prices?

I also live in Ireland and it’s not so expensive you couldn’t feed two adults and a toddler for five days on €35 (roughly equivalent to £30)

Anyway OP wherever you are in the EU a few pasta/rice/bean/lentil based meals plus porridge/toast for breakfast is affordable on that amount. I believe Lidl and Aldi operate in pretty much every EU country. They may not be the most exciting or varied meals you’ve ever had but nobody’s going to become malnourished in 5 days!

Hi OP

I’d go for some of the following:
Porridge (cheap bag of oats and milk) you can add honey/fruit etc
Pasta and sauce (tin of chopped tomato’s, herbs and any veg peas/sweetcorn from the freezer or any fresh veg as the sauce, cheaper and less salt)
Lentil or chickpea dhal and rice or jacket pot
Potato curry w rice
Nando’s style rice with out without the meat (google recipe)
Egg fried rice
If you can get some mince you could use half for a blog and half for a chilli
Lunches could be sandwiches, jacket pots, cheese on toast or toastie, beans on toast, pancakes, omelets
Make a meal plan and a shopping list and stick to it. Appreciate this is daunting if you’re not used to this situation

Ireland is expensive too
Eg €3.49 x 4 tins baked beans.
1kg pasta €0.90

I guess fruit and veg are less expensive in Portugal? Fish maybe?
Are there markets where you can buy in the quantities you need?

@Maccapaccawentwee

No meters etc, all electricity etc paid, it’s literally just food for 4.5 days for two adults and one toddler, no dietary requirements. I have lots of flour, eggs, onions, spaghetti, some rice, all spices 🤔

We spend £35-40 for an adult and a teen boy for 7 days and we eat well for that. A big pot of chilli or bolognese would cover dinner for a few nights. Porridge, eggs and mushrooms on toast for breakfast. You shouldn't have much of a problem.

Get a load of veggies, a chicken, some eggs. Milk porridge, butter, cheese, beans, plain yogurt.
Dinners
Jacket potatoes cheese /beans / salad
Dhal and rice served with boiled eggs, raitha.
Roast Chicken, mash, gravy, green veg (Cheapest is cabbage), carrots.
Last day : leftovers